The Lord’s Resistance Army

It hasn’t gone away

But the real problem is a lack of government in east and central Africa

THE Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) gives Africans nightmares. The murderous band plays on fears of magic and demonic possession. It also humiliates African governments by showing up their failure to protect their own people. Since its emergence in the 1980s, the group has killed thousands of villagers and abducted tens of thousands more, including children. The atrocities resulted in arrest warrants for its commander, Joseph Kony, and four of his henchmen—two have since been killed—from the International Criminal Court (ICC). At the height of the LRA terror, nearly 2m Acholis, Mr Kony's tribe, were driven from their homes in northern Uganda.

Mr Kony himself fled from Uganda in 2005. He has been ghosting through parts of Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic ever since. Analysts think he now has fewer than 500 fighters. Peace talks between Uganda and his group have fallen apart and periodic manhunts have followed. Most are led by the Ugandan army, with the backing of its neighbours. Last year America sent some special forces.

The Americans may have helped in the Ugandan ambush this week of an LRA commander, Caesar Acellam, caught in the Central African Republic. Mr Acellam was armed with a single Kalashnikov and just eight bullets. The Ugandans say he was delighted to be captured. He is hoping for an amnesty. That might be possible, given that he is not wanted by the ICC. Leniency could perhaps persuade other LRA commanders to abandon Mr Kony. But negotiating a surrender for the LRA's murderous commander would be politically harder, particularly in America where an online video calling for his capture went viral in March.

But the focus on Mr Kony misses the larger question of what to do about the heart of Africa. Vast swathes of bush and jungle are ungoverned. Its inhabitants have among the lowest life expectancy on the continent. Mr Kony's presence highlights the lack of personal protection of any kind. A single track threads through the western part of South Sudan, passable by trucks only in the dry season. The same is true for bits of the Central African Republic and Congo. Even in Uganda, where economic growth is strong thanks to oil, joblessness remains perilously high among Acholi men.

Today those who bore the brunt of the rebels' atrocities are more concerned with getting jobs and enjoying the benefits of Uganda's new oil revenues. Mr Acellam's delight in the meals and mosquito nets of his Ugandan guards is symptomatic of the harshness of life in the region. Fixing that will make catching Mr Kony look straightforward.